UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS and events
MAR 2, 2012 – APR 21, 2012
Wanna Buy a Duck?
Paintings by Jeff Carr
Wanna Buy A Duck?, an exhibit of paintings by Jeff Carr that promises to get a rise out of gallery visitors. This is exhilarating material by an accomplished local painter.
Carr’s paintings are rendered with deft strokes and a seemingly innate sense of composition and color. Above all else, however, Carr depicts a world that is ripe with unsettled meaning. Having grown up Jewish in the Mississippi Delta during the height of the Civil Rights struggle, Carr is a highly perceptive observer of the tensions and anomalies of everyday life. In paintings that draw freely from disparate sources, such as old postcards, photographic self-portraits, vaudeville performers, children’s masks and toys, and ordinary objects (tacos, anyone?) that turn up out of context, Carr makes hay out of the visual clutter of modern American culture. The result is a two-dimensional form of screwball comedy that pulsates with energy.
Many of the paintings in Wanna Buy a Duck? are bizarre vignettes that snare our attention. They present situations to wonder over. In one, a man (bearing an unmistakable likeness to Carr himself) is strangling a toy duck in a 1950s diner, which begs the question: What led to this? And: Where will this go from here?
Jeff Carr received formal training at the Memphis Art Academy, San Francisco Art Institute, and the California College of Arts and Crafts. His work has shown with regularity in solo and group shows since the 1970s, and he has been featured in Juxtapoz and Liquidator magazines and in the book The Art of Modern Rock.
World Music—
Accordian and Violin
Nada Lewis and Jon Schreiber
Saturday, Apr 14, 8pm
TICKETS
$10 at the door
The accordion and violin blend wonderfully in the music of many countries—Romania, Bulgaria, Latin America, Italy, France, Scandinavia and more. From romantic waltzes to the exotic modes and odd meters of the Balkans, fiery Roma (Gypsy) melodies and colorful folk dance tunes, a performance by this duo is very special.
Accordionist Nada Lewis graduated from UC Berkeley where she fell in love with Balkan folk music through studying the traditional dances and folklore. She has traveled to Eastern Europe and collected music in Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, and Greece. She teaches accordion, leads international music ensemble workshops, and has a world music entertainment agency, Folkloric Productions.
Jon Schreiber began playing violin at age 9, inspired by his grandmother's own life story. "Repeatedly serenading my grandmother from the street below her apartment in Berlin, my grandfather, playing violin and supported by his friends on mandolin and accordion, finally succeeded in getting my grandmother to soften her heart and open her window. This eventually resulted in their marriage and the birth of my father, who used a similar trick plus his good looks to win my mother's affections. But when you hear Nada and me play, if you only fall in love with the music, that will be sufficient."
